Toughing it out, PresidentMohamed
Siad Barre remains as committed to
"scientific socialism" as when he seized
power in 1969. Most African nations, of
the politicalleft and right, oppose the
Somali drive for a GreaterSomalia,
since it defies a golden rule of
postcolonialAfrica: Do not tamper
with existing borders.
independent state of Djibouti.* About a
fifth of Kenya remains largely Somali occu
pied, in the North-Eastern Province. In
Ethiopia, Somalis also predominate in
about a fifth of the country-mainly in the
Ogaden-or did until their tragic hegira.
How many people live in Texas-size So
malia proper is unknown. A government
planner gave me an estimate of five million.
Around a million and a half were refugees,
he guessed, more than three-fourths in
camps, the rest scattered in cities and towns.
"We feel they are our people," he went on,
sadness in his voice. "We have a moral obli
gation to them. We must share whatever
meager resources we have."
All the nation's resources, and the inter
national community's medicine, food, and
advice, fall short. Somalia bears the most
serious refugee situation in the world today.
The short drive from Hargeisa, Somalia's
second city, to the armed border town of
Tug Wajale carries you through desolate
gray-green bush and burned-out farmland,
past towering dust dervishes dancing in a
strong wind. A lake appears on the horizon,
long and inviting; soon it billows and van
ishes, a teasing mirage. In a dim village
restaurant, earthen floor hard packed,
whitewash flaking on mud-twig walls, a
small boy serves goat meat and camel milk.
"If you use this milk," said my guide, a re
straining hand on my arm, "three times a
day you can visit the latrine."
Transit Camps First Stop for Refugees
At Tug Wajale we stopped at a cluster of
rude metal sheds and nomad stick houses.
This was a transit camp, a first station for
refugees. About 150 families were awaiting
assignment to permanent camps. The camp
manager introduced me to Abdi Hassan, a
herder, and his wife and four children. "We
walked three nights from near Jijiga," he
said, "and hid by day."
I asked why they had fled.
"Ethiopian soldiers came. They took my
animals, 30 head, and my property, and
forced me to be a soldier. I escaped, went
home, got my wife, my children." He man
aged a smile. "Somalia has saved us. I will go
back to fight with the Front."
I would hear much the same story many
times. Villages bombed. Tanks. Livestock
killed or driven away. Houses burned. Ethi
opia colonizing the Ogaden, aided by Soviet
military advisers and Cuban troops.
More than a thousand refugees were
crossing the long border daily. In the camps,
nine out of ten were women, children, and
the elderly. The men, I was invariably told,
were off warring in the Ogaden.
And many were, I knew. Many others, I
also knew, had drifted to urban areas. But
much remained unknown. Perhaps near
famine, rather than war, had driven some
of those families into Somalia. Some, I sus
pected, now were fleeing misery in the
camps, slogging back to the Ogaden. In the
Horn of Africa, people shift like the sands.
I headed back to Hargeisa. On the way a
broken dream
(Continuedon page 765)
*See "Djibouti, Tiny New Nation on Africa's Horn,"
by Marion Kaplan, GEOGRAPHIC, October 1978.
Somalia's Hour of Need
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